Location: Decatur Ballroom
Journalists and experts with The Associated Press, Religion News Service and The Conversation share their experiences reporting on immigration in the U.S. during the federal government crackdown. The panelists will explore topics ranging from anonymous sourcing considerations, language barriers, protest coverage and the historical context of policy changes and migration.
SPEAKERS
Giovanna Dell'Orto
Giovanna Dell’Orto is a multimedia reporter with The AP’s Global Religion team. She has reported across the United States, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, covering events and issues ranging from the conclave to the Israel-Hamas war to the Olympics, from immigration to the intersection of Indigenous spirituality and the environment.
Aleja Hertzler-McCain
Aleja Hertzler-McCain is a reporter for RNS covering Latino faith and American Catholicism. Before joining RNS, Hertzler-McCain reported at the National Catholic Reporter and Sojourners, where she won awards from the Catholic Media Association and The Associated Church Press. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music and anthropology from Pomona College in Claremont, Calif.
Hertzler-McCain’s first languages are Spanish and English, and she also uses French and Portuguese in her reporting. She is based in Prince George’s County, Md.
Jack Jenkins
Jack Jenkins is a national reporter for RNS based in Washington, covering the intersection of religion and politics as well as U.S. Catholics. He is the author of “American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country.”
Before joining RNS in 2018, Jenkins was senior religion reporter at the Washington-based ThinkProgress. Jenkins was an RNS reporting intern in 2011 and later blogged for RNS. His work has appeared or been referenced in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, MSNBC and elsewhere. After graduating from Presbyterian College with a Bachelor of Arts in history and religion/philosophy, Jack received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University with a focus on Christianity, Islam and the media. Jenkins is based in Washington, D.C.
Ramazan Kılınç
Ramazan Kılınç is Professor of Political Science and Director of the School of Government and International Affairs at Kennesaw State University. Before joining Kennesaw State University, he served as Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Chair of Political Science Graduate Program, and Director of the Islamic Studies Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He received his Ph.D. (2008) from Arizona State University and M.A. (2001) and B.A. (1999) from Bilkent University, Turkey. He is the author of Alien Citizens: The State and Religious Minorities in Turkey and France (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and co-author of Generating Generosity in Catholicism and Islam: Beliefs, Institutions and Public Goods Provision (Cambridge University Press, 2018). His most recent articles appeared in Journal of Democracy, Comparative Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Politics and Religion, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Turkish Studies, and Muslim World Journal of Human Rights.
MODERATOR
David Crary
David Crary has been a reporter, editor and bureau chief with The Associated Press since 1976. Since mid-2021, he has been news director of AP's global religion team. He began his AP career in Mississippi, and later worked in Colorado and on AP's international desk in New York. As a foreign correspondent, he covered East and Southern Africa from bases in Nairobi and Johannesburg. Later, he was news editor at AP's Paris bureau and bureau chief in Toronto before transferring to New York in 1999. For 20 years he was a national writer primarily writing feature stories about volatile social issues, including abortion and LGBTQ rights.